PCTech Forums

Try the following thing :
Go into the Device Manager.
Go to "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and remove the IDE Channel your DVD-ROM is attached to. Reboot
Or
Uninstalling just the drive under the DVD/CD-ROM drives item in Device manager and letting Windows redetect it on boot up will change the current transfer mode to DMA if the transfer mode is set to use DMA if available in the properties/advanced tab of the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers for the IDE channel that the drive is on.

Thanks geekgirl, I tried both last night, I'd say without success but I'm still puzzled by some of the circumstances. The properties tabs for the DVD does not have any info as to whether the DVD is operating in DMA mode or not. The IDE tab indicates that DMA is to be the mode when supported by the device. It's only the PowerDVD diagnostics that provide any indication that DMA is or is not enbled, and that's after selecting 'Enable DMA' from that panel and rebooting. It comes back with 'DMA enable failed'.

Is a DVD player application program the best or only way to determine the mode of a device? I can't remember if PowerDVD is what we were using before the hard disk crash and the migration to Win2000. Is there perhaps a better player?

If PowerDVD wasnt the software that came with your DVDRom Id say that may be your problem, Third party software not supported by your particular rom may not run properly. What is the model no. of your dvdrom?

*edit
(provided by CD Freaks.com)
PIO has a very slow transfer rate. You can only watch films (smoothly) with DMA (Direct Memory Access) enabled. Try removing the VIA 4 in 1 drivers. Remove the channel that the DVD-ROM drive is on from device manager. Restart the computer and let the drive and channel be re-detected.

No software came with the DVD. Power DVD is rather generic, it is often provided with DVD drives, just not in this case.

The drive is a Toshiba SD-M1712. Here's the specs http://www.digitalconnection.com/produc ... dm1712.asp

According to that, it should work fine in DMA mode.

I'm not sure about the info provided by CD Freaks.com in your post, other than the VIA 4 in 1 driver comment, we've already covered that stuff.

Yep, been there, seen that. And it's set to 'use DMA . . ' That's why I question whether PowerDVD is reporting correctly or even running correctly I'm beginning to suspect.

More investigation to follow (and find WinDVD)

thanks

Have you tried going into the bios and looking to see if there was something in there to enable?
I apologize I may be overlooking something, please if you find out anything post it back so I can see what the problem was

If you have a via chipset I'd certainly recommend investigating installing the 4-in-1 drivers. I'd also check your BIOS to ensure that DMA is enabled there.

If you really want to see whether DMA is enabled, try using either sisoft sandra to benchmark your drive. That should provide you with a speed rating & CPU utilisation.

thanks, I'll give those things a try this evening and post back what I find out.